In a nutshell: Vaccinating mothers during the third trimester of pregnancy would be the most effective way to protect infants against pertussis, health officials from the California Department of Public Health have said.

Infants are among the hardest hit in California’s ongoing pertussis epidemic. Because they are too young to be effectively vaccinated and are therefore dependent on maternal antibodies for protection, the most effective strategy to protect infants is to make sure all pregnant women receive the tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis vaccine (Tdap) in the third trimester of pregnancy. This timing will ensure the maximum transfer of protective maternal antibodies to the infant, wrote lead author Kathleen Winter and her colleagues in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.1

“Since the immune response to Tdap peaks about two weeks after administration and the majority …

In a nutshell: Shortly after the Salk and Sabin polio vaccines had demonstrated the transformative benefits of childhood vaccination but long before the ill-informed controversy over the measles–mumps–rubella vaccine became fodder for refusal movements and television talk shows, the Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962 established a U.S. vaccination program against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. With that effort launched and growing attention directed to imminent vaccination campaigns against influenza, measles, and rubella, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Anthony Celebrezze approved the establishment of a committee of outside experts to advise the federal government on vaccination activities. That group, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), marks its 50th anniversary this year

In a nutshell: BackgroundEffectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccine in community-dwelling elderly people: a meta-analysis of test-negative design case-control studies The application of test-negative design case-control studies to assess the effectiveness of influenza vaccine has increased substantially in the past few years. The validity of these studies is predicated on the assumption that confounding bias by risk factors is limited by design. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in a high-risk group of elderly people. Methods We searched the Cochrane library, Medline, and Embase up to July 13, 2014, for test-negative design case-control studies that assessed the effectiveness of seasonal influenza vaccine against laboratory confirmed influenza in community-dwelling people aged 60 years or older. We used generalised linear mixed models, adapted for test-negative design case-control studies, to estimate vaccine effectiveness according to vaccine match and epidemic conditions.Findings 35 test-negative design case-control studies with 53 datasets met inclusion criteria. Seasonal influenza vaccine was not significantly effective during local virus activity, irrespective of vaccine match or mismatch to the circulating viruses. Vaccination was significantly effective against laboratory confirmed influenza during sporadic activity (odds ratio [OR] 0·69, 95% CI 0·48–0·99) only when the vaccine matched. Additionally, vaccination was significantly effective during regional (match: OR 0·42, 95% CI 0·30–0·60; mismatch: OR 0·57, 95% CI 0·41–0·79) and widespread (match: 0·54, 0·46–0·62; mismatch: OR 0·72, 95% CI 0·60–0·85) outbreaks.InterpretationOur findings show that in elderly people, irrespective of vaccine match, seasonal influenza vaccination is effective against laboratory confirmed influenza during epidemic seasons. Efforts should be renewed worldwide to further increase uptake of the influenza vaccine in the elderly population.

In a nutshell: Measles deaths have gone up, not down, in the last year. Progress towards elimination of the disease that kills and disables thousands of children has stopped in its tracks as funding has been cut back in the global recession

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